The Immigration and Asylum Bill is currently at the committee stage, before it returns to Parliament for a third reading. But why am I telling you this? Restore Glasgow is an anti-trafficking charity, not a firm of immigration lawyers.
The reason is that while the title of the bill suggests it is about immigration and asylum, there are actually a few important changes to the rights and protections of trafficking victims too. Treating human trafficking as if it’s an immigration issue rather than a serious crime isn’t a good start, but the provisions in the bill are even worse:
- The bill instructs civil servants to consider that a potential victim’s credibility is damaged if they delay revealing what happened to them, even if they are traumatised or don’t know that there is a National Referral Mechanism, let alone how to get referred into it.
- It also says their credibility is damaged if their story bears a “striking similarity” to the story of other potential victims. As an Albanian interpreter who hears practically the same story dozens of times, because traffickers often operate according to a tried-and-trusted playbook, this worries me.
- Even more unfairly, victims can be disqualified from protection for public order reasons if they have committed a crime – including crimes they were forced to commit while they were being trafficked! This even applies to children (yes, you read that right, to children!) unless they already have a legal right to be in the country.
- At the moment a lot of trafficking victims are initially rejected by the Home Office but then appeal to an independent tribunal which is more likely to uphold their claim. The right to go to an independent tribunal is being removed. If you think the Home Office has made the wrong decision then your claim can be reassessed by – another branch of the Home Office
If you’re concerned, angered or, like me, disgusted by victims of crime being treated as if they are criminals, what can you do? You can write to your MP asking them to oppose the bill when it comes back to parliament for the third reading; you can pray about it; and you can share this post with other people so they can do the same!
Let’s make Glasgow and the UK a hostile environment for traffickers, not for trafficking victims.
0 Comments